Knowing The Unknown: The Paradox of "The Absolute Unknown" From Fakhr Al-Din Al-Razi To Tashkoprizada

Knowing the Unknown: The Paradox of
“The Absolute Unknown” From

Fakhr al-Din al-Razi to Tashkoprizada*
Harun Kuşlu**
Translated by Feichal Abdou Moumouni***
Abstract: A paradox that originated from Plato’s Meno and that perpetuated throughout the classical
period of the history of Islamic philosophy within the same structure seems to have been reconstructed
by Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1210), and hence gained a new philosophical context. Upon this, both the
statement of the paradox and the scholarly framework within which it came to be addressed were renewed.
Rather than the issues surrounding the possibility of the acquisition of knowledge, the issue was centered
in this framework on the structural relationship between the parts of knowledge (i.e., conception and assent
), and the impact such a relationship had on how the topics of logic came to be discussed. In this context,
providing an explanation on how conception and assent arose became necessary for a suppositional concept
such as “the-absolute unknown (al-majhūl mutlaqan)”. This inquiry into finding an explanation, in turn, led
to our usage of the expression “knowing the unknowable”. To overcome this problem, esteemed logicians
after Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī proposed several effective solutions. One such endeavor had continued up until
the Ottoman period. Henceforth, the Ottoman philosopher Tashkoprīzāda (d. 968/1561) heavily critiqued
these proposed solutions, and instead provided a much stronger alternative. For in the philosophical system
that Tashkoprīzāda used, the proposed solutions provided by early philosophers such as al-Khūnajī (d.
646/1248) and al-Urmawī (d. 682/1283), and those provided by Ṣadr al-Sharī‘a (d. 747/1346) and al-Sayyid
al-Sharīf Al-Jurjānī (d. 816/1413), were equally weak, even though these latter were closer to Tashkoprīzāda
in both time and methodology.
Keywords: Self-referential paradox, Absolute unknown, Suppositional concepts, Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī,
Tashkoprīzāda.
* I would like to express my gratitute to my colleagues İhsan Fazlıoğlu, Mustakim Arıcı and Eşref Altaş, who shared their
criticisms with me for the betterment of this work both in terms of content and expression.
* Dr., Istanbul Medeniyet University, Department of Philosophy.
** MA Student, Ibn Haldun University, Department of Islamic Studies.
DOI dx.doi.org/10.12658/Nazariyat.6.1.M0092en Atıf© Kuşlu, Harun. “Knowing the Unknown: The Paradox of “The Absolute Unknown” From
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2137-0233 Fakhr al-Din al-Razi to Tashkoprizada”, Nazariyat 6/1 (May 2020): 89-123.
Received 6 February 2020 Accepted 22 February 2020
NAZARİYAT
I. Introduction
T
he philosophical debates over the possibility of acquiring knowledge and
its processes can at least be traced back to the well-known Meno paradox.1
Apart from being analyzed in Plato’s Meno dialogue,2 Aristotle discussed
this issue thoroughly in his book Posterior Analytics examining the notion of certain
knowledge and as a result suggesting that the process of acquiring knowledge by
way of reasoning is ultimately based on pre-existing knowledge, for otherwise
it leads to an infinite regression in the mind.3 Both al-Fārābī (d. 339/950),4 who
was the first in the Islamic world to have systematically examined logic and topics
related to methodology; and Avicenna (d. 428/1037),5 who acknowledged the
value of al-Fārābī within his intellectual tradition, conferred a significant interest
onto this debate in their work on Kitāb al-Burhān.6 However, Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī
(d. 606/1210) had positioned this issue in a different context, and as a result
Islamic philosophers began to address the issue from new angles.7 As will be seen
below from the viewpoints of the post-Avicennan logicians, this issue had exceeded
the limits of the debate surrounding “the possibility of acquiring knowledge;”
furthermore, it had been examined in the context of a holistic problem such as the
structural relations between the topics of logic and the ordering of these topics.
After Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, esteemed scholars such as al-Khūnajī (d. 646/1248),
al-Abharī (d. 633/1264), al-Ṭūsī (d. 672/1274), al-Kātibī (d. 675/1277), al-Urmawī
1 For further evaluations regarding the historical origin of the paradox discussed here and the previously
written articles, see Joep Lameer, “Ghayr al-ma‘lūm yamtani‘ al-hukm ‘alayhi: An Exploratory
Anthology of a False Paradox in Medieval Islamic Philosophy”, Oriens, no 3-4 (2014): 399-402.
2 Platon, Menon, tr. Ahmet Cevizci (Istanbul: Sentez, 2007), 80 d4-81 a3.
3 Aristotle, Aristotle’s Prior and Posterior Analytics, tr. W. D. Ross (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001), 71a1,
p. 503. This idea is expressed in the Arabic Organon as “every mental learning and teaching can only
occur with a pre-existing knowledge”; see. Aristū, “al-Burhān”, al-Naṣṣ al-kāmil li-Manṭiq Aristū, ed.
Farīd Jabr, I (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr al-Lubnānī, 1999), 425.
4 al-Fārābī, Kitāb al-Burhān, tr. Ömer Türker and Ömer Mahir Alper (Istanbul: Klasik Yayınları, 2008), 52 vd.
5 Ibn Sīnā, II. Analitikler: Burhān, tr. Ömer Türker (Istanbul: Litera Yayıncılık, 2006), 8, 24 vd.
6 On how al-Fārābī and Avicenna discuss the Menon paradox, see Yaşar Aydınlı, “Fârâbi ve İbn Sînâ’da
Menon Paradoksu (Öğrenme Paradoksu)”, Uluslararası İbn Sînâ Sempozyumu: Bildiriler 22-24 Mayıs
2008 (Istanbul: İstanbul Büyükşehir Belediyesi Kültür A.Ş. Yayıları, 2009), 13-42.
7 Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Manṭiq al-Mulakhkhaṣ, Ahad Farāmarz Qarāmalaki and Ādīna Asgharīnazhād
(Tehran: Dānishgāh-i Imām Sādiq, 1381/2005), 7. For a separate study combining both the context of
the paradox in the history of Islamic philosophy as in II. Analitikler (Posterior Analytics) and the context
addressed in this article, see Ahād Farāmarz Qarāmalakī and Muḥsin Jāhid, “Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī wa
ḥall-i mu‘ammā-yi majhūl-i muṭlaq‘”, Falsafa-i Dīn 1, no 3 (HŞ 1384): 46-33 quoted from Lameer,
“Ghayr al-ma‘lūm yamtani‘”. 399.
90
Harun Kuşlu, Knowing the Unknown: The Paradox of
“The Absolute Unknown” From Fakhr al-Din al-Razi to Tashkoprizada
(d. 682/1283), Shams al-Dīn al-Samarqandī (d. 702/1303), Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī
(d. 702/1365), Ṣadr al-Sharī‘a (d. 747/1346), and al-Sayyid al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī
(d. 816/1413) continued writing about this subject. When approaching this
issue, the post-Avicennan scholars were primarily concerned with analyzing the
relationship between the parts of knowledge (i.e., conception, and assent)8 and
providing a rational basis for placing the topics of logic in order of importance.
Given that conception naturally precedes assent, the rules providing conception
also essentially had to be coined in the books before those rules providing assent;
in other words, books on logic had to be arranged in a manner corresponding to the
way knowledge occurs in the mind. 9 However, as will be seen in detail below, this
rule led to a paradox that would keep logicians busy for a long time.
Although Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī had at an early stage pointed out the paradox
arising from the expression of this rule, the first attempts to provide a solution
were later made by logicians such as al-Khūnajī and al-Urmawī. Both al-Khūnajī
in Kashf al-asrār 10 and al-Urmawī in his Maṭāli‘ al-anwār 11 offered the same
solution when addressing this paradox. Because these works were commented on
respectively by al-Kātibī and Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī, the commentators had scrutinized
the offered solutions and subjected them to criticism. Gaining access to al-Jurjānī’s
assessments regarding al-Urmawī’s and Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s ideas is also possible
thanks to his ḥāshiya [gloss] on the Maṭāli‘. A remarkable and more precise solution
for this paradox compared to earlier ones can be found in the treatise the 16th-
century Ottoman-Turkish philosopher Tashkoprīzāda (d. 968/1561) wrote on this
subject in particular.12 Tashkoprīzāda, after emphasizing having read al-Jurjānī’s
8 For the content of Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s work, which elaborates on the relationship between conception and
assent in the post Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī period, in addition to his views regarding assent, see Ömer Türker,
“Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī on the Notion of Assent and Its Philosophical Implications”, Nazariyat 5, 1-23.
9 Although during the pre-Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī period of Islamic philosophy the distinction between
conception and assent was one of the tools by means of which the Meno paradox used to be surpassed,
Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī and later logicians dealt with the new form of the paradox, which in fact stems
from this distinction itself. Regarding the usage of this distinction in the classical period, see Aydınlı,
“Fârâbî ve İbn Sînâ’da Menon Paradoksu”, 130-42.
10 Afḍal al-Dīn al-Khūnajī, Kashf al-asrār ‘an ghawāmiḍ al-afkār, ed. Khaled al-Rouayheb (Tehran:
Mu’assasa-i Pazhūhash-i Ḥikma wa Falsafa-i Īrān, 1389/2010), 9-10.
11 For al-Urmawī and Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī, see Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Sharḥ al-Maṭāli‘, ed. Usāma al-Sā‘idī, I
(Qom: Manshūrāt-i Dhawī al-Qurbā, 1391), 77-85.
12 Tashkoprīzāda Aḥmad Afandī, “Fatḥ amr al-mughlaq fī mas’alat majhūl al-mutlaq”, In Mantık Risaleleri,
ed. and tr. Berra Kepekçi, Mehmet Özturan and Harun Kuşlu (Istanbul: İstanbul Medeniyet Üniversitesi
Yayınları, 2017), 107-63.
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NAZARİYAT
ḥāshiya on the Maṭāli‘,13 meticulously examined both al-Jurjānī’s and Quṭb al-Dīn
al-Rāzī’s arguments regarding this issue.
When referring to almost all the above logicians in the context of the strengths
and weaknesses of the previously proposed solutions, Tashkoprīzāda also revealed
how these answers had been criticized by other philosophers in Islamic thought
thereby presenting an alternative line to the historical development of the
problem. Aside from Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī and al-Jurjānī, Tashkoprīzāda can also be
said to have attributed significant importance to the views of Ṣadr al-Sharī‘a (one
of the influential figures of the Ḥanafī-Māturīdī tradition), and to have offered an
alternative line to the historical progress presented in other works on the course
of this subject in the history of Islamic logic.14 In addition, we also notice the tools
he used to have provided a more adequate solution compared to those previously
proposed. Therefore, we will first discuss how Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī coined the
paradox and then discuss the proposed solutions of some important logicians from
Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī to the Ottoman period, with reference to the tools involved in
their solutions. Meanwhile, we will touch upon Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Ṣadr al-Sharī‘a,
al-Jurjānī, and Tashkoprīzāda’s criticisms of the previous answers to the paradox.
At the end of the paper, we will explain the distinctiveness of Tashkoprīzāda’s
solution and uncover its dissimilarity to the previously proposed solutions. We will
in this manner shed light on the missing and inadequate elements in the earlier
logicians’ answers that led Tashkoprīzāda to new inquiries while focusing on the
implications of the answers put forth, along with the historical and problematic
aspects of the issue.
II. Reconstructing the Paradox: Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī

Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, when evaluating the relationship between conception and
assent in his book al-Mulakhkhaṣ, remarks that according to al-Fārābī’s division of
knowledge that Islamic logicians had inherited, assent consists of three conceptions:
the subject of judgment, the means by which judgment is made, and the judgment
13 Tashkoprīzāda, al-Shaqāiq al-Nu‘māniyya fī ‘ulamā’ al-dawla al-‘Uthmāniyya, ed. Ahmed Subhi Furat
(Istanbul: Edebiyat Fakültesi Basımevi, 1985), 554.
14 The work of Lameer illustrates how this discussion was conducted by Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī and later
logicians through a relatively different line. In this regard, it is worth noting that Tashkoprīzāda
offers both an alternative line and lays the ground, with his criticism of the previous solution, for a
philosophical anaylsis of the content.
92
itself.15 Here, al-Rāzī implies that making a judgment about something necessitates
the conception of these three things; in other words, assenting something is not
possible unless its conception is first available. Therefore, this idea was construed
in the form of a rule where “The subject of judgment must be known in [at least]
one aspect.” However, because both assent and conception represent parts
of knowledge; the fact that assent is clarified by its counterpart (conception)
leaves room for objections.16 Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī discusses the objections and
implications regarding this view in the corresponding section of his book. In this
sense, he acknowledged the effort some objectors had made to override this rule
based on the equivalence relationship between propositions. When the converted
form of the original proposition is invalidated by means of the equivalence
relationship, the original form is also known to become invalidated. When one
converts the proposition that incorporates the rule of “the subject of judgment is
known in at least one aspect” the following proposition is obtained: “The unknown
cannot be subjected to judgment (‫)غري املعلوم يمتنع احلكم عليه‬.” Using the expression “The
unknown cannot be subjected to judgment,” Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī had thus revealed
the paradoxical proposition. In fact, when invalidating this converted form of the
proposition, its original form also becomes invalidated. Therefore beginning by
invalidating the converted proposition is only logical.
Probable objectors demonstrated the invalidity of the converted proposition
either by showing how it contradicts its original form or how it invalidates itself by
leading to a self-referential paradox. According to these objectors, this proposition
both contradicts the original one and is an invalid proposition in and of itself,
the reason being that the subject-term of the proposition “The unknown cannot
be subjected to judgment” (i.e., the unknown) is considered either as something
that is indeed “unknown” or something that is “known.” If the subject-term is
something “unknown,” then this proposition is in contradiction with the original
(i.e., the subject of judgment is known in at least one aspect) because the subject-
term of this proposition is quite “unknown” while the subject of judgment is
stated to be something known. However, two propositions with an equivalent
relationship must not be contradictory. In the second possible case, if the subject-
term of the proposition is to be taken as “something known to be unknown,”
the term “unknown” being known in terms of that characteristic is indicated if
15 Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Manṭiq al-Mulakhkhaṣ, 7.

16 Regarding this topic additionally, see Lameer, “Ghayr al-ma‘lūm yamtani‘”, 397.
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NAZARİYAT
it follows that the proposition is contradicted in the context of its own term, as
what is referred to as “unknown” turns into “something known that is subjected to
knowledge.” Therefore, the proposition negates, or even further invalidates its own
subject-term. Consequently, it is an invalid proposition.
Given the current depiction of the problem, whether or not the subject-term
is considered known, the proposition is invalid either way. Hence, whoever aspires
to answer this question must either take the subject-term to be an unknown
(hereby closing the self-referential paradox) and thereby commit to solving the
resulting contradiction, or take it to be a known (thereby becoming free of the
contradiction that results from the original proposition) and commit to solving the
self-referential paradox. As such, the problem in question is neither a Meno nor a
self-referential paradox alone. On the contrary, it is a combined paradox. To make
this explanation more explicit, we may show the propositions as follows:
[1] “The unknown” cannot be subjected to judgment.

[2a] If Proposition 1 is true, then its subject-term is considered “unknown”
[3] “The unknown” has been subjected to judgment.
However “the unknown” may not be subjected to judgment (Proposition1)
Conclusion: Propositions 1 and 3 are in contradiction
(because the proposition transforms into “The unknown may not be subjected to
judgment, yet it is being subjected to judgment”)
[2b] If Proposition 1 is true when the subject-term is “known,” then Proposition 1 is

rendered invalid.
This is because the proposition implies the unknown to be known and therefore is self-
negated. In addition, the rule regarding the “impossibility of the known being subjected
to judgment” becomes invalid.
Even though Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī did not deal with the issue in clear and precise
terms as later logicians, he did put forward the fundamental propositions upon
which they would later discuss it. Also, because Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī considers the
rule “Assent requires conception” to be axiomatic, he offers no solution overcoming
the paradox, the reason in his opinion being that “necessary rules are not subjected
to criticism/paradox (al-tashkīk fi-l-ḍarūriyyāt lā yuqdaḥ fīhā).”17
17 Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Manṭiq al-Mulakhkhaṣ, 8. al-Kātibī too states in the commentary of this work that
Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī was contented with these statements and therefore did not attempt to provide an
answer; see al-Kātibī, al-Munaṣṣaṣ fī sharḥ al-Mulakhkhaṣ, Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi, Şehid Ali Paşa Or.
1680, fos. 3a; Also, see Lameer, “Ghayr al-ma‘lūm yamtani‘”, 405-8.
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II. Discussing the Paradox in the Post-Rāzīan Period: Solutions and Criticisms
As stated above, important figures from the post-Rāzīan tradition presented
several answers in their works on logic in an attempt to solve this paradox. From
al-Rāzī up to Tashkoprīzāda, the tools used for solving the paradox were for the
most part based on the following elements (Tashkoprīzāda also includes even more
unusual tools in the solution):
1. Essentialist and externalist readings of the propositions
2. Substantial-descriptional readings
3. Distinguishing between suppositional existence (al-farḍ fi-l-dhihn) and
external existence
4. Distinguishing between substance and a mental supposition
5. Distinguishing between the predicate and predication
6. Ḥāl al-ḥukm [the state of judgment] and ḥāl i‘tibār al-ḥukm [the state by
considering the judgment]
Philosophers mainly attempted to solve the problem using these distinctions.
They proceeded by sometimes considering the original proposition and its
converted form, sometimes only the converted form as a descriptional proposition
or other times as the converted form that cannot be taken as an external but only
as an essential proposition, and sometimes by taking the subject-term of one of the
propositions as a mental supposition. Let us now explain what these solution tools
meant, how they were used by logicians to resolve the paradox, and then how these
solutions were criticized in later periods.
In the introductory sections from Kashf al-asrār, al-Khūnajī expresses this rule
and the paradox that it engenders in a more articulated manner than Fakhr al-Dīn
al-Rāzī in an attempt to provide a grounding reason for why the topics in logic are
ordered from conception to assent. First the following should be stated:
Just as conception naturally precede assent, definition (al-qawl al-shāriḥ) also deserves
to precede demonstration (ḥujja) when being coined. Because given the impossibility of
attributing two things to each other without knowing either of them or the connection
that exits between them, three conceptions must inevitably occur before every assent.18
In this case, “Making a judgment about something necessitates that the thing
in question is known in one aspect.” Therefore, departing from the equivalence
18 al-Khūnajī, Kashf al-asrār, 9-10.
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NAZARİYAT
relationship that exists between the proposition expressing this rule and its converted
form, one can examine them both as elements of one conditional proposition: “If
making a judgment about something necessitates that the thing in question is
known in one aspect,” then “the absolute unknown (al-majhūl mutlaqan) cannot be
subjected to judgment.” However, the consequent of this conditional proposition
entails a paradox and thus appears invalid. Based on the falseness of the consequent,
the antecedent is also assumed to be false as a true proposition would not entail
a false proposition.19 This construction from al-Khūnajī and al-Urmawī might be
better explained by making use of Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s expressions20 as follows:
[1] If in order to make a judgment about something, knowing one aspect of the thing
in question is necessitated (i.e., The subject of judgment is known in one aspect, which
is also the antecedent)
THE CONVERSE FORM IS THEN TAKEN, where:
[2] The absolute unknown’s inability to be subjected to judgment must be true (This is
the consequent)
BASED ON THE IMPLICATION OF EQUIVALENCE RULE
If the consequent is false, the antecedent is also false.
[3a] If Proposition 2 is true when the subject-term is “the absolutely unknown,”
[4] Then some unknowns can be subjected to judgment.
Meanwhile, the case is that “The absolute unknown cannot be subjected to judgment”
(Proposition 2)
CONCLUSION: CONTRADICTION
[3b] If Proposition 2 is true when its subject-term is considered “known”
[5] Then this proposition negates itself and therefore becomes invalid.
CONCLUSION: IT IS INVALID DUE TO THE SELF-REFERENTIAL PARADOX
19 This rule is clearly expressed in al-Kātibī’s al-Shamsiyya as follows: “since it is impossible for the wrong
to implicate the truth…(‫”)المتنــاع اســتلزام الصــادق الــكاذب‬, al-Kātibī, al-Shamsiyya fī al-qawā‘id al-manṭiqiyya,
ed. Mahdī Faḍlullah (Beirut: al-Markaz al-Thaqāfī al-‘Arabī, 1998), 217.
20 Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Sharḥ al-Maṭāli‘, I, 90 vd. As Lameer has observed, although al-Urmawī uses the
concepts showing the relationship between the components of the conditional proposition when
answering the paradox, he did not establish the implicational relationship between the propositions,
but he rather established the implicational relationship between the terms of the subject (“making
judgment about something”) and predication (knowing that thing) of the paradoxical proposition, see
Lameer, “Ghayr al-ma‘lūm yamtani‘”, 416. Nevertheless, components of the conditional proposition
shown in this article were manifested through Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s interpretation.
96
After exposing this paradox, al-Khūnajī and al-Urmawī proposed a solution

based on distinguishing the “essentialist and externalist readings of propositions,”21
which in fact dates back to Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī. Distinguishing between the
essentialist and externalist readings of propositions arises by referring the subject-
term of a proposition to an essence (haqīqī) in the mind or to external (khārijī)
existences. In Kashf al-asrār al-Khūnajī explains the essentialist and externalist ways
of reading propositions and the differences that exist between them as follows:
The statement: “Every C [is B]” may be considered either in terms of the external
existence or in terms of essence. In the first case, we mean that B is true for everything
that C is true for in the external existence. This necessitates that both are true for the
external existent. Thus, the rule has been limited to every external existent of C, either
in the past or the present. In the second case, however, we do not mean everything that
has a share of the external existence; on the contrary, we mean that “everything that if
had exited, would have been C, were to exist would be B”.
The second point of view is not dependent on the external existence of either element
[subject and predicate]; on the contrary, even if these elements had been non-existent
(ma‘dūm), the proposition would still be valid. In addition, when it actually exists in the
external world, the judgment in itself is not limited to existents in the external world
only. Therefore, based on the second point of view, had nothing been existent in the
external world other than the color black, “every white is a color” would still be true,
whereas “all colors are black” remains false. When considering the first, however, the
opposite would be valid.22
Another logician who effectively applied this distinction during that period was
al-Kātibī. The following phrases from al-Shamsiyya will facilitate understanding the
difference regarding the essentialist and externalist readings of propositions:
The difference between the two considerations is clear: In a situation where there is no
square in the external world, it is true to say, in terms of essential proposition, that
“every square is a figure;” however, this is false in terms of being an external proposition.
Yet when no figure in the external world exists other than squares, saying that “every
figure is a square” is true in terms of the external proposition, but false in terms of the
essential proposition.23
21 Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Manṭiq al-Mulakhkhaṣ, 141; regarding this topic, see Tony Street, “Arabic and
Islamic Philosophy of Language and Logic: 2.3.2. Post-Avicennan Logicians”, https://plato.stanford.
edu/entries/arabic-islamic-language (25.02.2020)
22 al-Khūnajī, Kashf al-asrār 84-5.
23 al-Kātibī, al-Shamsiyya, 212-3.
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NAZARİYAT
As can be seen, an analysis of a proposition based on the essentialist or

externalist reading is extremely effective in determining a proposition’s semantics
and truth value. The first names that Tashkoprīzāda mentioned centuries later
in the context of resolving the problem were al-Khūnajī24 and al-Urmawī25. Both
attempted to solve the paradox based on this distinction in particular. Accordingly,
the subject-term of a proposition can be addressed either by reference to an
existent in the external world or an essence in the mind. Also, when the subject-
term of a proposition is being addressed in terms of its essence, the subject-term
does not necessarily refer to an existent in the external world. If we consider as
an unknown (Proposition. 3a) the term “absolute unknown,” which in fact is the
subject-term of the converted form of Proposition 2 “The absolute unknown cannot
be subjected to judgment,” we will be able to overcome the self-referential paradox
because the proposition already speaks of the unknown. It is also valid because it
does not negate itself. In addition, when we analyze this proposition in terms of
the externalist reading, the proposition becomes invalid, for there is no existent in
the external world such as “an absolute unknown.” Indeed, everything that exists
in the external world is known in one aspect. This proposition being invalid, the
implicational relationship based on the existing equivalence relationship between
itself and the original form is deemed null, and as a result, the falsity of the one
fails to engender the falsity of the other. Therefore, no contradiction is found
between Proposition 1 “That which is subject to judgment is known in one aspect”
and the paradoxical Proposition 2 considered with respect to the external world.
This is because given the disappearance of the equivalent relationship between
Propositions 1 and 2, the invalidity of the converted proposition does not invalidate
the original proposition.
Hence, if Proposition 2, taken with respect to essence by reference to mental
existence, is subjected to the essentialist reading, the proposition remains valid and
the contradiction is overruled.26 For even though nothing in the external world can
be shown as an absolute unknown, talking about a meaning (essence) of an absolute
unknown is still possible in the mind. Therefore, when Proposition 2 states “The
absolute unknown cannot be subjected to judgment” the judgment is not on “the
absolute unknown (al-majhūl al-mutlaq)” in the external world but on an essence/
24 al-Khūnajī, Kashf al-asrār, 10.

25 Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Sharḥ al-Maṭāli‘, I, 90 vd. For al-Urmawī additionally, see Lameer, “Ghayr al-ma‘lūm
yamtani‘”, 415-22.
26 al-Khūnajī, Kashf al-asrār, 10.
98
meaning in the mind that namely takes Proposition 2 with respect to essence.
Thus, this proposition, by virtue of its subject-term, both refers to the essence of
the “absolute unknown” in the mind and makes a judgment about it. On the other
hand, because it continues to be considered an unknown and thereby an essential
proposition, it provides a solution that surpasses the self-referential paradox.
In the commentary Maṭāli‘, one sees Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s attitude towards
this solution. As he also states that, given the condition/state of the subject-
term, converting the original proposition into an external proposition is certainly
impossible. Therefore, we need to analyze this proposition with respect to essence,
in which case the proposition remains valid and the claim of the objectors regarding
“the invalidity of the paradoxical proposition” becomes invalidated (kidhb al-tālī
mamnū‘). However, al-Jurjānī points out the weakness of this solution due to the
following reasons: Firstly, we do not have to accept al-Khūnajī and al-Urmawī’s
claims whereby “Everything that exists in the external world is known in one
aspect.” On the contrary, what is known can quite plausibly be only “that aspect”
because “knowing something in one aspect” and “knowing only ‘that aspect’” are
different things. To put it more clearly, even if the aspect of being known is possible
by the mere property of something being in the external world, this might not make
knowing that thing in an aspect possible. Secondly, they used the invalidity of the
paradoxical Proposition 2 as evidence to undermine the implicational relationship
between it and the original Proposition 1. Due to the invalidity of Proposition 2
and the implausibility of a true proposition implicating falsity, both were deemed
invalid. However, even if it is not logically possible for a true proposition to implicate
a false one, it is still possible for two false propositions to implicate each other.27 In
other words, those objectors who put forward the paradox and opposed the rule
could very well have claimed that it is precisely because of the invalidity of the original
proposition that the paradoxical proposition is invalid. Therefore, their solution does
not appear strong enough.
The solution above was also criticized from another angle. Accordingly, if Proposition 2
“The absolute unknown is not subjected to judgment” were to be taken not in the affirmative
form but rather in the negative form thus rendered “No unknown is subjected to judgment,”
then the solution based on the external proposition fails for negative propositions do not
mandate the actual existence of the subject-term in the external world. Therefore, this
27 Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Sharḥ al-Maṭāli‘, I, 92.
99
NAZARİYAT
proposition becomes valid without the unknown needing to be in the external world; thus
the contradiction between itself and the original form reemerges once again. This nullifies al-
Khūnajī and al-Urmawī’s solutions. Although Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī raised this criticism, Ṣadr
al-Sharī‘a referred us to Shams al-Dīn al-Samarqandī’s Qisṭās as the source of this criticism.28
In fact, this idea has been able to be observed since al-Kātibī’s commentary on Kashf al-asrār.29
In addition to the criticisms above, al-Samarqandī indicated that, if based on the claim that
“there is no unknown in the external world,” the subject-term of the proposition is taken as
a known thing; this choice will take us back to the paradox of contradiction with the original
proposition. His reasoning is that taking the subject-term as a known might lead into the
thought that the thing in question should also exist in the external world. Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī
remarks that, although sensible in itself, this counterclaim has no value in this discussion
for it is a transgression of the rules of objection (qānūn al-tawjīh). Nevertheless, these initial
attempts to overcome the paradox seem to have not convinced later philosophers.
Another important factor in determining the semantics of a proposition is

the substantial-descriptional readings. These constitute one of the many tools
logicians have used to solve this paradox. These readings derive from Avicennan
logic and constitute one of the basic components of this system. Avicenna, when
putting forth the readings of a necessary proposition in al-Ishārāt, expressed that a
proposition can be addressed substantially or descriptionally.
Necessity is either absolute or occurs on condition. The condition is also either the
perpetuity (dawām) of the substance’s existence or the perpetuity of the subject’s being
described with what it has been assigned (dawām kawn al-mawḍū‘ bi-mā wuḍi‘a ma‘ah).
This distinction thus indicates that the meaning of a proposition can be

determined according to a substantial or a descriptional reading. The expression “A
human is necessarily a rational body” is a substantial proposition; this expression
implies that “As long as the substance (dhāt) continues to exist as a human, it is
a rational body.” The expression “All that moves changes” is an example of a
descriptional proposition, for the judgment of changeability has been connected
to the description of movement. The difference between this condition and the
previous one is obvious: In the substantial proposition, the judgment is based
upon the actual existence of the substance (i.e., the human). In the descriptional
28 Ṣadr al-Sharī‘a, Ta‘dīl al-‘ulūm, Nuruosmaniye Or. 2657, fos. 16a-17a.

29 al-Kātibī, Sharḥ Kashf al-asrār, Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi, Laleli Or. 2664, fos. 6b; Lameer, “Ghayr al-
ma‘lūm yamtani‘”, 410.
100
proposition, however, the description ascribed to the substance is taken into

consideration rather than the substance itself. For, as specified by Avicenna, if the
actor of the movement has a substance and an essence, the descriptions of moving
or not moving may then be attached30 to this essence, and thus alter the meaning
of the proposition accordingly.
Logicians had treated the antecedent and the consequent (or both together) as
descriptional propositions based on this reading, and made use of this feature in
resolving the paradox. In these propositions, both the terms “subject of judgment”
as the subject-term of the antecedent and the “absolute unknown” as the subject-
term of the consequent can suitably be taken as descriptional because neither the
substance of “the subject of judgment” needs to be known nor does the substance
of “the absolute unknown” implicate an impossibility due to its being subject to
judgment. On the contrary, these features arose due to the descriptional reading
both propositions have been subjected to. Simply put, “The subject of judgment
remains known as long as it carries the description of being judged upon”
(Proposition 1 [descriptional]) and “Subjecting the absolute unknown to judgment
also remains impossible, as long as it carries the description of being absolutely
unknown” (Proposition 2 [descriptional]). This solution is mentioned in Quṭb al-
Dīn al-Rāzī’s commentary on Maṭāli‘ and was subjected to criticism by al-Jurjānī.
The ordering of the argument in this solution is as follows:
Proposition 1 [descriptional]: “The subject of judgment remains known in one aspect as

long as it carries the description of being judged upon.”
Proposition 2 [descriptional] “Subjecting the absolute unknown to judgment remains

impossible as long as it carries the description of being absolutely unknown.”
If the absolute unknown in Proposition 2 is considered unknown, the self-referential

paradox will have been surpassed as the proposition is about the unknown.
Additionally, “subjecting the unknown to judgment” means that it is subjected

to judgment independent of its description of being “unknown” (Proposition 2
[substantial]), for as long as it carries the description of being unknown it cannot under
no circumstances be subjected to judgment (Proposition 2 [descriptional]).
Conclusion: the equivalence relationship has been eliminated and the contradiction removed.
30 İbn Sīnā, İşaretler ve Tembihler, ed. Ali Durusoy, Muhittin Macit and Ekrem Demirli (Istanbul: Litera
Yayıncılık, 2005), 31. For detailed information regarding the substantial-descriptional reading of
propositions, see Tony Street, “Arapça Mantık”, İslam Mantık Tarihi, ed. and tr. Harun Kuşlu (Istanbul:
Klasik Yayınları, 2013), 54-6, 81-7.
101
NAZARİYAT
The proposition that subjects the unknown to judgment while taking it as an

unknown (Proposition 2 [substantial]) loses its descriptional character and thus
transforms into a substantial proposition. Henceforth, as the original Proposition
1 is descriptional (mashrūṭa) and its converse form (Proposition 2) substantial
(general absolute); the situation implicates a difference of modalities between
the two and thus the relationship of contradiction between them dies out.
Tashkoprīzāda summarizes the situation as follows:
If the subject of judgment in the consequent is an unknown, then subjecting certain

unknowns to judgment should not be impossible. In fact, the implicated proposition is
a general absolute (the substantial proposition), and the implicating proposition (i.e.,
antecedent) is mashrūṭa [the descriptional proposition]; therefore, no contradiction
exists between them.31
On the other hand, if the absolute unknown in Proposition 2 is taken as a known,

namely when “The term absolute unknown is considered to be known in terms
of carrying the description of being unknown” (Proposition 2b [descriptional]),
then being subjected to judgment with this description does not constitute a
contradiction because the original proposition states that known things can
be subjected to judgment. In other words, when considering an unknown, the
subject of the proposition transcends the self-referential paradox; thus based
on its character of being unknown it gains the eligibility of becoming subject to
judgment as a descriptional proposition. Al-Jurjānī in this second alternative
states that, rather than being substantial, the proposition has become a new
descriptional proposition (al-ḥīniyya)32, and in that sense the contradiction arises
anew; therefore, the solution can only be a solution for the first option (Proposition
3a).33 The reason for this is that this proposition became a possible proposition and
its being read descriptionally as “Subjecting the absolute unknown to judgment is
possible as long as it carries the description of being absolutely unknown.” Thus, it
becomes an expression with the same modality as its original proposition.
In al-Samarqandī, we see another solution that also uses the descriptional
reading, but only this time it takes the converse paradoxical Proposition 2 to be
descriptional rather than the original Proposition 1 that expresses the rule. After
31 Tashkoprīzāda, “Fatḥ al-amr al-mughlaq”, 114-5.

32 For proposition with this nature, see al-Kātibī, al-Shamiyyah, 220.
33 al-Sayyid al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī, al-Sayyid ‘alā Sharḥ al-Maṭāli‘ (Istanbul: Hacı Muharrem Efendi Matbaası,
1303), 79.
102
specifying the flaws of the solution based on the essentialist-externalist distinction,

al-Samarqandī in his work Qisṭās al-afkār advances his own argument as a tighter
answer. Al-Samarqandī’s method aims to restate the truth of the paradoxical
Proposition 2 “The absolute unknown cannot be subjected to judgment,” by
invalidating its contradiction. When a contradiction is falsified, its truth becomes
restated, hence necessitating the truth of the original Proposition 1. This is because
a true proposition can only be implicated from a true proposition. The descriptional
Proposition 2 “The absolute unknown cannot be subjected to judgment” is a
proposition that necessitates being descriptional, and its meaning is “As long as the
absolute unknown remains an absolute unknown, subjecting it to judgment remains
impossible.” On the other hand, its contradiction becomes a possible proposition in
descriptional reading (al-ḥīniyya) in the form of “As long as the absolute unknown
remains an absolute unknown, subjecting it to judgment is impossible,” which in
fact entails that “As long as the absolute unknown remains an absolute unknown,
subjecting it to judgment is possible”. However, the case for the descriptional reading
was that the absolute unknown cannot be subjected to judgment as long as it remains
an absolute unknown. The result is a contradiction, and therefore the proposition
is invalidated. In this case, given that the contradictory proposition (“As long as
the absolute unknown remains an absolute unknown, subjecting it to judgment
is not impossible”) has been invalidated, the proposition “As long as the absolute
unknown remains an absolute unknown, subjecting it to judgment is impossible”
has to be true.34 Therefore, the proposition “The subject of judgment must have
one known aspect,” which is the original form of the paradoxical proposition, must
be true. Thus, because the subject of the proposition is taken as an unknown, it is
deemed free from the self-referential problem as well as being validated because its
contradiction has been invalidated through a descriptional reading.
Ṣadr al-Sharī‘a does not accept this suggestion from al-Samarqandī. According
to Ṣadr al-Sharī‘a, this suggestion is not a solution but a counterargument
(mu‘āraḍa). Put in terms of the disputation technique, it reduces the validity of the
claim but does not propose a new claim or a solution. According to Ṣadr al-Sharī‘a,
al-Samarqandī had weakened the assertion of this paradox yet did not present any
new evidence:
34 Shams al-Dīn al-Samarqandī, Qisṭas al-afkār: Düşüncenin Kıstası, ed. Necmeddin Pehlivan (Istanbul:
Türkiye Yazma Eserler Kurumu Başkanlığı, 2014), 82. Additionally, see Lameer, “Ghayr al-ma‘lūm
yamtani‘”, 429-31.
103
NAZARİYAT
The one who puts forward this paradox (al-mughāliṭ) declared Proposition 2 (i.e., the
consequent) false because it implicated a false proposition. The one responding to the
paradox believed this proposition to be true by stating “If the proposition were false,
its contradictory would be true, but the contradictory is not true.” This, however, only
proves that the correctness of the claim of the one putting forward the paradox has
been falsified through other evidence. Thus it is a mu‘āraḍa, but this does not invalidate
the validity of the evidence of the one putting forward the paradox, let alone being a
solution. On the other hand, the use of a mu‘āraḍa in a paradox is not something that
is approved of.35
This solution is not addressed in Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s commentary on Maṭāli‘,

but Tashkoprīzāda indicates that it came from al-Samarqandī, the author of the
Qisṭās, and that it was subjected to criticism from Ṣadr al-Sharī‘a, who he referred to
as the author of Ta‘dīl al-mīzān. Moreover, he expresses his own criticisms. According
to Tashkoprīzāda, the latter and the former solutions are both insufficient. These
answers ultimately reinforce the evidence of the paradox because the one who put
forth the paradox advocates as already existent the invalidity of the relationship
of equivalence between the antecedent (Proposition 1) and the consequent
(Proposition 2).36 These answers, which aim to invalidate the relationship between
two propositions, perhaps achieve this, but based on this, they do not prove the
truth of the first proposition.
Another answer is to take “the absolute unknown” into consideration from
two different respects; firstly in terms of its “being only unknown” and secondly
in terms of its “being subject to knowledge as an unknown,” because, as Quṭb al-
Dīn al-Rāzī puts it, “being unknown” is a state that is subject to knowledge exactly
like “being known.” According to this answer, the impossibility of judging the
“absolute unknown” is based on the fact that it is absolutely unknown (option 1);
the possibility of judgment, on the other hand, is based on the fact that its being
absolutely unknown is a subject of judgment (option 2). Therefore, the propositions
“The absolute unknown cannot be subjected to judgment” and “Some unknowns
may be subjected to judgment” can both exist; or to put it differently, there is no
contradiction between these two situations where the subject-term is taken to be
unknown or known, for the absolute unknown uttered in the second proposition
is considered to be “A particular whose character is known to be unknowable.” In
Proposition 1, the term “absolute unknown” as a universal is a concept upon which
35 Ṣadr al-Sharī‘a, Ta‘dīl al-‘ulūm, fos. 18a.

104
making judgment is impossible. For this reason, the claim of contradiction between
propositions due to the variation of subject-terms from one proposition to the
other is rejected. Perhaps thinking of this situation based on a distinction of the
term absolute unknown in terms of a concept and its referents (what it is referring
to) would be easier. Although when considered in terms of its referents, the term
“absolute unknown” is something that can never be subject to knowledge alongside
all the individuals it contains; in this proposition, however, it can be subject to
knowledge as a particular term, or in terms of its being a concept. In other words,
it can be subject to the following judgment of “That which cannot be judged upon”.
Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī and Tashkoprīzāda provided no information about whom
this answer had come from, yet one of the logicians who used it was al-Abharī. Al-Ṭūsī
construes his answer by making a distinction between the referent of the term (madlūl)
and its content/meaning (ittiṣāf). Accordingly, the predicate of impossibility regarding the
absolute unknown is related to the concept/name, while the impossibility of predication is
related to its referent.37 Tashkoprīzāda, on the other hand, confirmed this answer by using
the distinction between predicate and predication. According to him, the impossibility
of judging the absolute unknown presents itself in the predicate, while the possibility of
judgment presents itself in the predication:
The result of this answer is that the modality of the impossibility of judgment is the
modality of the predicate, and the modality of the [possibility] of judgment is the
modality of the predication. Predication and predicate are different things and therefore
have different modalities. In this situation, in the first aspect it differs from the subject-
term of the proposition, but from itself in the second, and when considered from two
aspects, no inconsistency arises between these two propositions.38
Based on the concepts Tashkoprīzāda used to confirm the answer, the above
solution may be understood as follows: If the absolute unknown is taken as an
unknown (Proposition 3a) while considering the impossibility of judging it,
essentially this “impossibility of making a judgment,” is the modality of the
37 For Athīr al-Dīn al-Abharī and Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī, see Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī, “Ta‘dīl al-mi‘yār fī naqd
Tanzīl al-afkār”, Manṭiq wa mabāḥis al-alfāz: Majmū‘ā-i mutūn wa maqālāt-i taḥqīq, ed. Mahdī Muḥaqiq and
Toshihiko Izutsu (Tehran: Mu’assasa-i Muṭāla‘āt-i Islamī-i Dānishgāh-i McGill Shu‘ba-i Tehran, 1353HŞ),
143. Lameer, after expressing that the way to overcome the self-referential paradox would be in terms
of subjecing the paradox to different hierarchies of semantic readings, he specifies that the first Islamic
philosopher who might have realized that was Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī, but only that studies in that respect
developed with the influence of al-Urmawī. See Lameer, “Ghayr al-ma‘lūm yamtani‘”, 399, 407, 413-4.
38 Tashkoprīzāda, “Fatḥ amr al-mughlaq”, 120-1.
105
NAZARİYAT
predicate of the proposition. In other words, the impossible thing in this situation
is not knowing the absolute unknown, but the predicate of “the impossibility of
making a judgment.” In the second option, making a judgment about the absolute
unknown as something whose state of “being unknown is known” is not a modality
of the predicate but is instead considered a modality of the predication. Therefore,
as the state of the proposition changes based on the difference of the predicate and
the predication, the implicational relationship between them also disappears. Even
though Tashkoprīzāda makes this correction, he does not refrain from evoking
a possible objection regarding this answer. In this answer, making the judgment
that “The absolute unknown is known in terms of being unknown” causes the
reappearance of the self-referential paradox.
Another proposed solution that Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī considers in the Lawāmi‘
al-asrār focuses on the syntactic and semantic features of the proposition.
According to this, Proposition 2, “The absolute unknown cannot be subjected to
judgment,” should be taken as meaning “Making a judgment about the absolute
unknown is impossible.” In this proposition, the subject-term must also be
emphasized to not be the term “absolute unknown” but a composition of terms
(i.e., making a judgment about the absolute unknown). Thus, because Proposition
1 (“That which is subjected to judgment is known in one aspect”) and its terms
differ, the alleged contradiction between them (i.e., between the word “known”
in Proposition 1 and “making a judgment about the unknown” in Proposition 2)
is overruled. Accordingly, the term “absolute unknown” ceases to be a subject-
term and turns into a different concept by means of which the subject-term is
substantiated. In terms of syntax, this proposition is identical to the proposition
“Being God’s partner is impossible” because the “impossibility” that can be seen in
this proposition comes not as a modality but as a predicate. Al-Jurjānī supports
this solution with another example: “the coexistence of two contradictions is
inconceivable.” In his own words:
In the propositions “Being God’s partner is impossible” and “The coexistence of two
contradictions is inconceivable,” the judgments of impossibility and inconceivability
are specifically about “partnership” and “coexistence”. These terms (partnership
and coexistence) are also substantiated by reference to the terms “God” and “two
contradictories”.39
39 Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Sharḥ al-Maṭāli‘, I, 96.
106
Therefore, if Proposition 2 (“The absolute unknown cannot be subjected to

judgment”) is actually shaped in accordance with this syntax, it is reconstructed
in the form of “Making a judgment about the absolute unknown is impossible.” As
Tashkoprīzāda puts it, the subject of judgment in the consequent of Proposition
2 is no longer the term “absolute unknown,” it becomes the judgment itself
provided that it is associated with the absolute unknown. Thus, the criticism of the
contradiction is overruled because the terms differ depending on the original or
the converted forms of the proposition. This solution, which is based on syntactic
moves, satisfies neither Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī40 nor Tashkoprīzāda, who for his part
specifically perceived it as only a verbal solution. The reason being that in this
answer, the judgment is stated to be about the predicate and not the subject-term,
thus the modality was shifted from the subject-term to the predicate, whereas in
the paradoxical Proposition 2 and, just as in the original Proposition 1, the modality
of the judgment must belong to the subject-term, not to the predicate. Therefore,
Tashkoprīzāda interprets this “…not as a solution, but rather as a confession of the
power and insolubility of the paradox.”41
The last alternative that we can find in the commentary of the Maṭāli‘ is the
solution that Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī describes as “the definitive answer in terms of
the paradox’s matter.” Together with the solutions from al-Khūnajī and al-Urmawī,
this is the fifth answer enumerated by Quṭb al-Dīn and is based on taking the
subject-term of the proposition according to the distinction between the substance
and the suppositional. According to al-Jurjānī’s interpretation, it was developed
to demonstrate that the state of something as it is in itself (nafs al-amr) may
differ from its state as a mental supposition. Stated differently, the distinction is
between substance and suppositional being. This suggests that although the absolute
unknown is a known thing in nafs al-amr, it is something that can be supposed
as an unknown in the mind. Thus, the possibility and impossibility of making a
judgment about the absolute unknown are only possible with respect to these two
viewpoints.
Al-Jurjānī explains how the absolute unknown can be something known in
itself or as a substance:
40 Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Sharḥ al-Maṭāli‘, I, 97. Lameer reports this solution from al-Ḥillī (d. 726/1326);
however, since al-Ḥillī reports this opinion throught the usage of an expression such as “some people
might answer it this way”, it cannot be said with certainty that the opinion was his own. See Lameer,
“Ghayr al-ma‘lūm yamtani‘”, 425.
107
NAZARİYAT
When we say “The absolute unknown is such and such a thing,” thanks to the content of
this appellation (being unknown) the mind undoubtedly directs itself to the individuals
of this content and, by grasping at this universally, contemplates the existing
individuals available in this way; thus, they become known in the nafs al-amr. These
individuals are the substances of the absolute unknown. In this case, the substance
should be known “in terms of being characterized by the attribute of being unknown.”
… That whose substance is known in one aspect cannot be absolutely unknown in the
nafs al-amr; on the contrary, when the mind directs itself at an object by means of its
content, the object becomes unknown only in terms of the supposition of the mind.
Therefore, a judgment about the substance in question takes place with respect to the
fact that it is known; however, the negation of its judgment takes place with respect to
the presupposition of its characteristic as an absolute unknown.42
According to al-Jurjānī absolute unknowns as a term, are things known by the

property of carrying that characteristic when considering the individuals that the
term may be predicated on, but remains an unknown thing in terms of supposition
because making a judgment about it based on the fact that it is known in nafs al-amr
does not prevent one from supposing the impossibility of judgment. Al-Jurjānī made
such an effort to explain the answer, but Tashkoprīzāda rejected that statement of
his, stating this answer to be refutable. According to Tashkoprīzāda, if the absolute
unknown being known in terms of substance means to be known by some feature in
its substance or by something other than the characteristic of being unknown, then
that is absolutely unacceptable. For that turns the absolute unknown into something
known and therefore confines us to the self-referential paradox. If the implication is
taken “that the absolute unknown is something known in nafs al-amr thanks to its
characteristic of being unknown,” as al-Jurjānī had understood it, then that is also
an unacceptable option according to Tashkoprīzāda because the absolute unknown
being known is possible if and only if “it is supposed in the nafs al-amr as being
characterized with a known characteristic of being unknown.” This necessitates the
unknown being suppositional not only in terms of its character but also in terms
of its own self, for if the characterization as a implican (malzūm) is suppositional,
the characterization as an implicate (lāzim) must also be suppositional.43 In such a
case, the absolute unknown can never be anything known in the nafs al-amr. This
criticism, as will follow, is one of the foundational rules that Tashkoprīzāda would
take up as a starting point in his solution. He begins by first and foremost proving
the absolute unknown as something that does not exist in nafs al-amr.
42 al-Jurjānī, al-Sayyid ‘alā Sharḥ al-Maṭāli‘, 81.

43 Tashkoprīzāda, “Fatḥ amr al-mughlaq”, 123.
108
Five of the six solutions we have covered so far – aside from al-Samarqandī’s
solution – can be found in Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s commentary on Maṭāli‘.
Tashkoprīzāda adds two more solutions to these, one being the solution that al-
Jurjānī reported as the easiest solution (jawāb ashal), and the other being Ṣadr al-
Sharī‘a’s solution. Thus, Tashkoprīzāda reports all eight solutions that had reached
him together with their criticisms.
According to the solution explained by al-Jurjānī, “The fact that judgment
necessitates the conception of the subject-term (known in one aspect)”
(Proposition 1) actually means that “The presence of some kind of conception is
necessitated regarding the subject-term in the judger.” For this reason, the fact
that no judgment can be made about “the absolute unknown” (Proposition 2) is
based on the fact that no one could conceptualize it. In other words, anything
that is unknown to an individual person cannot be subjected to any judgment by
that person. Tashkoprīzāda rejects this solution on the grounds that a universal
concept is being particularized. As a matter of fact, concepts such as “the absolute
unknown” or its opposite “being knowable in one aspect” are not conditional to
any one person’s conception but are instead universal concepts. Taking the subject
of the paradoxical Proposition 2 to be confined to the mind of any individual is
incorrect. So this solution is not appropriate.
Finally, Ṣadr al-Sharī‘a developed another proposed solution by modifying
Shams al-Dīn al-Samarqandī’s response; Tashkoprīzāda presented this as the eighth
answer. As pointed out before, al-Samarqandī first stated al-Khūnajī and al-Urmawī’s
mutual solution and then made three criticisms regarding it. He later developed an
answer solely based on the descriptional reading of the paradoxical Proposition 2. In
his work Ta‘dīl [Modification] at the end of his criticism of al-Samarqandī’s answer,
Ṣadr al-Sharī‘a strengthens al-Samarqandī’s solution through the introduction of
new concepts with an attitude appropriate to the title of his work.
Ṣadr al-Sharī‘a begins to examine with his own concepts the “well-known
paradox (al-mughālaṭa al-mashhūra)” that had occupied many philosophers. Even
though he continued using the descriptional reading of propositions inherited from
al-Samarqandī, his solution included both “the state by considering the judgment
(ḥāl i‘tibār al-ḥukm)” and “the state of judgment (ḥāl al-ḥukm),”44 a different
44 We can see that the expression “state of judgment” was also used by al-Ḥillī; see Lameer, “Ghayr al-
ma‘lūm yamtani‘”, 425.
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terminology that we had not seen in the previous solutions. In the related parts
of his work, the philosopher provides various explanations in order to make his
concepts more understandable. In fact, the state by considering the judgment may
sometimes be the same as the state of judgment. This is the case of the proposition
in the example “Zayd is now a writer.” The judgment here is given at this moment,
and the time considered with respect to the actualization of the judgment is this
present moment. On the other hand, for a statement such as “Zayd will be a writer
tomorrow,” two situations are being distinguished from each other: for in this
proposition the state by considering the judgment is tomorrow, and the state of
judgment is the present moment.
Tashkoprīzāda, who had carefully read Ṣadr al-Sharī‘a, continued using these
concepts. In his own words, the state of judgment is the state where the assent of
the proposition is taken into account, and the state by considering the judgment is the
state where the implications of the assent are taken into account; implications such
as (i) the oneness of the subject-term and the predicate in the external world or the
nafs al-amr, (ii) the coexistence of either of these with the other in the external world
or the nafs al-amr, or (iii) the relatedness of the subject-term to the other. According
to Tashkoprīzāda, who continues to elucidate the proposition we observe in Ṣadr al-
Sharī‘a, the state of judgment in the proposition “Zayd will be a writer tomorrow” is
the moment of assent, namely the exact moment when the judger judges. The state
by considering the judgment only occurs at the moment the description of writer
will be connected to Zayd tomorrow. Tashkoprīzāda’s following statement will help
us understand how these concepts were used to solve this paradox:
The realization [thubūt] of one thing to another, particularly in the affirmation,

necessitates the realization of the realized [thābit] thing in terms of the state of
judgment and the state by considering the judgment, whereas in terms of the state by
considering the judgment, realization of the realized thing in affirmation and negation
is not necessitated.45
In other words, making an affirmative or negative judgment about something

in terms of the state by considering the judgment does not necessitate the
existence of the subject of judgment. However, in terms of the state of judgment,
it is unnecessary only if it is a negative judgment.
45 Tashkoprīzāda, “Zihinsel Varlığa Dair Tartışmalarda Özün ve Hakikatin Tespiti,” In Osmanlı Felsefesi:
Seçme Metinler, ed. Ömer Mahir Alper (Istanbul: Klasik Yayınları, 2015), 254-255.
110
According to this, although Proposition 2 “The absolute unknown cannot be

subjected to judgment” is descriptional, if the state by considering the judgment
is intended, making a judgment about the subject-term should not necessitate
the realization of the subject-term; therefore the subject-term may be taken as
an unknown. Thus, making a judgment about the subject-term is impossible as
long as it remains an unknown. Also, making this judgment about it does not
necessitate the realization of the subject-term. In the event of its being known,
the validity of the judgment would not contradict that. In the case where the state
of judgment is taken into consideration, as in the second alternative, because its
realization becomes a necessity, the subject-term will be known and thus making
a judgment about it is only possible as long as the subject-term remains known.
Thus, the judgment of the impossibility of it being judged is provided as long as
it remains unknown.46 So the subject-term is known when taken in terms of the
state of judgment, but unknown when taken in terms of the state by considering
the judgment. Therefore, we then judge in the current moment “the impossibility
of judging the subject-term when it is unknown.” In this way, we come to the
conclusion that “making a judgment about the unknown is impossible as long as it
remains an unknown,” which is true. Thus, the self-referential paradox closes and
resolves the contradiction because the state by considering the judgment provides
“the unknown,” and the contradiction closes and resolves the self-referential
paradox because the state of judgment provides “the known.”
Ṣadr al-Sharī‘a wanted to make the descriptional reading option a stronger
solution through his own concepts. In addition to his first solution, Ṣadr al-Sharī‘a
suggested a secondary one, but Tashkoprīzāda criticizes all the solutions from
the author of Ta‘dīl using the same character. His solution is based on considering
the term of absolute unknown as a known, whereas this is not true because
the absolute unknown becomes something known neither by the necessity of
its substance nor from another perspective. It is only true in terms of its being
absolutely unknown, which is not something that gets applied to it in the nafs al-
amr. Even if the characteristic of being absolutely unknown were to be subjected to
knowledge, it would have only been as a supposition. However, something becomes
known by knowing a characteristic about it that can be stated in the nafs al-amr
and not by being a supposition of the mind. However, no characteristic of that sort
46 Ṣadr al-Sharī‘a, Ta‘dīl al-‘ulūm, fos. 16a-17b.
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NAZARİYAT
can be said about the “absolute unknown” in the nafs al-amr.47 Once again, we see
that Tashkoprīzāda has brought forth the criticism he had stated concerning the
previous options. This is because in his solution he earnestly emphasizes that the
absolute unknown can only be taken as a supposition through its characteristic of
being unknown, and even that is nothing but a presupposition.
IV. Tashkoprīzāda’s Solution Tools and Suggestion

Because the Ottoman-Turkish philosopher Tashkoprīzāda was a member of one of
the leading families of the scholarly class and an extraordinary name in terms of
his personal interests, the fact that he read the above-mentioned philosophers is
no surprise. In al-Shaqāiq, he provides satisfactory information about the books
he had read and under whose supervision they had been read, in addition to
information about the commentaries and glosses he had also read. He specifies
having read al-Urmawī’s Maṭāli‘, Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s written commentary on
it, and al-Jurjānī’s ḥāshiya on the Maṭāli‘, all of which are pertinent books with
respect to the issue we are dealing with here.48 Regarding the subject matters of
sciences in his work Miftāḥ al-sa‘āda, he names the works of al-Khūnajī and al-
Urmawī right after Avicenna’s works on logic and acknowledges the ḥāshiya on
Maṭāli‘ as a higher-level text. At the end of the section on logic, he states, “He who
wants to reach the summit in this science must read the Ta‘dīl from Ṣadr al-Sharī‘a,
[for] in this book, the author elucidates the issues that previous philosophers had
been perplexed by.”49
Aside from all the intensive readings, Tashkoprīzāda wrote an independent
treatise on the “well-known paradox,” which has been discussed in a few paragraphs
from the introductory sections of these works. This approximately five-folio treatise,
named Fath al-amr al-mughlaq fī mas’alat al-majhūl al-mutlaq, was written in such a
manner that, although short in length, it depicts the historical development of
the subject. The author organized this treatise, wherein he enumerates the names,
books, and suggestions of philosophers who had provided solutions to this issue,
into a preamble and two parts. While he limited the preamble to how the issue had
been coined, he criticized the answers given by the previous philosophers in the first

48 Tashkoprīzāda, al-Shaqāiq, 554.
49 Tashkoprīzāda, Miftāḥ al-sa‘āda wa miṣbāḥ al-siyāda fī mawḍu‘āt al-‘ulūm, ed. Kāmil Bakrī and Abd al-
Wahhāb Abū al-Nūr, I (Cairo: Dār al-Kutub al-Ḥadītha, 1968), 299-303.
112
part and put forth his own solutions in the second. When referring to the previous
philosophers, he begins by addressing this issue with reference to al-Khūnajī and
al-Urmawī without acknowledging Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, most probably because
Fakhr al-Dīn al- Rāzī did not respond to this paradox, at least not in al-Mulakhkhaṣ.
We may see that the answer Tashkoprīzāda developed for overcoming the
paradox includes concepts that had not been included in the previously proposed
solutions discussed in this article. The reason being that philosophers make their
own solution more accurate compared to previous ones by constructing it on the
concepts that their age’s philosophical terminology gives importance to, such
as “supposition based on abstraction (al-farḍ al-intizā‘ī),” “supposition based on
fiction (al-farḍ al-ikhtirā‘ī),” “contracted coinage for the proposition (‘aqd al-waḍ‘),”
and “contracted predicate (‘aqd al-ḥaml)”.
At the beginning of his endeavor, Tashkoprīzāda firmly positions this notion
that he had been insistently emphasizing as the basis of his solution when
criticizing the previous suggestions; namely, “No mental or external existence of
the absolute unknown exists in the nafs al-amr.” The philosopher takes as a starting
point the idea that the existence of the absolute unknown is found in none of these
layers, which are actually expressive of the various ways of existence, for the things
present in the nafs al-amr are there not by the characteristic of “being absolutely
unknown” but rather by the characteristic of “being somehow known, which in fact
contradicts the former. To understand Tashkoprīzāda’s solution and make it more
understandable let us first comprehend the relationship between nafs al-amr, the
mind, and the external world.
Even though the concept of nafs al-amr had entered the vocabulary repertoire
of philosophers earlier in the tradition of Islamic thought, the attitudes of scholars
such as al-Jurjānī, who had a significant place in the scholarly line of Tashkoprīzāda,
seem to have made this concept one of the most important terms of the 15th and
16th centuries.50 As a matter of fact, at the very beginning of Tashkoprīzāda’s
treatise about mental being, he referred to al-Jurjānī’s works to confirm his own
thoughts while dealing with the relationship between the mind, the external world,
and the nafs al-amr. According to al-Jurjānī, the nafs al-amr refers to the mental
judgments that are not based on the consideration of the one considering them
50 İhsan Fazlıoğlu, “Hakikat ile İtibar: Dış-dünya’nın Bilgisinin Doğası Üzerine – XV. Yüzyıl Doğa Felsefesi
ve Matematik Açısından Bir İnceleme–”, Nazariyat: İslâm Felsefesi ve Bilim Tarihi Araştırmaları Dergisi 1,
no. 1 (October 2014): 21 vd.
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NAZARİYAT
or the supposition of the one supposing them. Tashkoprīzāda emphasizes the

accurateness of this view and adds that nafs al-amr means “something being as it is
in itself (nafs al-shay’ fī ḥadd dhātih).”
This means that the existence of that thing is not related to the consideration of the
one considering it or the supposition of the one supposing it. On the contrary, even if it
were devoid of every consideration and supposition, it would still exist.51
Therefore, something whose existence is not suppositional exists in the nafs al-amr.
These expressions would occur almost identically to the sentences that take place in
Tahānawī’s al-Kashshāf. Nonetheless, he states that, at times, “Things whose existence
are not based on fictional supposition (al-farḍ al-ikhtirā‘ī) may be said to be in the nafs
al-amr.”52 In this case, things that are in the nafs al-amr are things that do not derive
from a fictional supposition. As a matter of fact, Tashkoprīzāda states that things that
exist in the mind and derive from this type of fiction have no existence in the nafs al-
amr.53 Consequently, as the concept of “absolute unknown” had been derived from a
fictional supposition, its existence evidently cannot be mentioned in the nafs al-amr.
Nafs al-amr refers to divine knowledge, human knowledge, and the external
objects that are subjected to knowledge. As a matter of fact, the amr in the term
nafs al-amr expresses the essences belonging to these three domains, and the nafs
the conditions/states and implications of those essences. However, when the
phrase “corresponding to the nafs al-amr” is employed, only human knowledge
is implied, for we are not eligible to test the corollary to divine knowledge.54 This
term is therefore more general than mental being and external being and in fact
encompasses both. It is more general in an absolute sense than external being, but
only in one way from mental being. Hence, all external beings but only a part of
mental beings are necessarily in the nafs al-amr. Yet, everything in the nafs al-amr
cannot be said to exist in the external world. In addition, some mental objects are not
part of the nafs al-amr. For this reason, a relative-general-and-specific relationship
51 Tashkoprīzāda, “Zihinsel Varlığa Dair Tartışmalarla Özün ve Hakikatin Tespiti”, 242, 249. For more
information regarding terms such as the external and mental nafs al-amr and their relationship, please
refer to: İhsan Fazlıoğlu, “Sayyid Şerif’in Nefsü’l-emr Nazariyesi ve Matematik Bilimlere Uygulanması:
Şerhu’l-Mevâkıf Örneği”, İslām Düşüncesinde Süreklilik ve Değişim: Seyyid Şerif Cürcânî Örneği, ed. M.
Cüneyt Kaya (Istanbul: Klasik Yayınları, 2015), 163-96; Fazlıoğlu, “Hakikat ile İtibar”, 1-33.
52 Muhammad al-Tahānawī, Kashshāf iṣṭilāḥāt al-funūn wa-l-‘ulūm, ed. Rafīq al-‘Ajam, II (Beirut: Maktabat
Lubnān, 1416/1995), 1720; Fazlıoğlu, “Hakikat ile İtibar”, 22-3.
53 Tashkoprīzāda, “Zihinsel Varlığa Dair Tartışmalar”, 242.
114
exists between mental beings and beings from the nafs al-amr.55 Tashkoprīzāda
also separates mental beings into mentally essential and suppositional. For example,
“four is an even number” is essential whereas “five is an even number” is a mental
supposition. In conclusion, the counterpart of the suppositional is the essential,
but both are mental. The counterpart to mental being is external being; however,
external being and only a part of mental being belong to the nafs al-amr. Therefore,
essential beings are not suppositional, and suppositional beings are not in the nafs
al-amr. However, beings in the external world and the non-fictional suppositions
among mental beings are in the nafs al-amr.
After all this, Tashkoprīzāda must be stated to have used these tools with such
dexterity that it enabled him to construct a solution without making the mistake
of the previous solutions, namely of making the unknown known in itself (nafs al-
amr). According to this, the absolute unknown is first and foremost an unknown
in terms of its essence. Talking about the existence of this concept in the nafs al-
amr is impossible. As Tashkoprīzāda mentioned in his treatise on universals, just
as the mind is capable of obtaining universal concepts through an abstraction from
the external world, it is also capable of obtaining them through its own faculties
without relying on anything in the external world. These second kinds of concepts
are suppositional universals (al-kuliyyāt al-faraḍiyya); the mind may even make the
supposition completely fictional (faraḍiyyan ikhtirā‘iyyan). One example would be the
capability of acquiring the concept of impossible from the concept of necessary.56 Let us
rely on Tahānawī’s work in order to understand this distinction between supposition
based on abstraction and supposition based on fiction that Tashkoprīzāda had
effectively applied in resolving the paradox. According to Tahānawī, philosophers
had stated two types of suppositions to exist:
One is referred to as a supposition based on abstraction (al-farḍ al-intizā‘ī), which

means transforming the potentiality something has into an actuality. The occurrence
here corresponds to the supposition. Meanwhile, the other type is a supposition based
on fictionality (al-farḍ al-ikhtirā‘ī); this means fictionalizing a potentiality that never
was present in something in the first place and then subjecting it to processing. Here
the occurrence is different from the supposition.57

56 Tashkoprīzāda Aḥmad Afandī, “Qawā‘id al-ḥamliyyāt fī taḥqīq mabāḥith al-kulliyyāt,” In Felsefe
Risaleleri, ed. and tr. Kübra Şenel, Cahid Şenel ve M. Zahid Tiryaki (Istanbul: İstanbul Medeniyet
Üniversitesi Yayınları, 2016), 122-3.
57 Tashkoprīzāda, Kashshāf, II, 1268.
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NAZARİYAT
One example of a supposition based on abstraction would be to suppose a

sphere moving around its axis to have two immobile points. For such a sphere,
the two fixed points are supposed to correspond to those on the sphere and can
be applied to it. This supposition was obtained through abstraction even without
any basis in the external world. The concept of the absolute unknown, which is the
subject of our study here, has been obtained through a fictional supposition based
on the notion of “being known in one aspect,” as follows below. As will be shown
later on, opposition (mukhālafa), not correspondence (muṭābaqa), is found in
actuality between the notion of being “absolutely unknown” and of “being subject
to knowledge in one aspect” in actuality. Therefore, the nafs al-amr, whether in the
first sense (i.e., non-suppositional and non-assumed) or in the second and broader
sense (i.e., a non-fictional supposition), shows no appearance of the concept of “the
absolute unknown” with either of these meanings. Therefore, as
[As] the absolute unknown does not exist in the nafs al-amr, the concept of “absolute
unknown” cannot be abstracted from an existing essence/substance in the nafs al-amr;
on the contrary, this concept – just as the meaning of impossibility is abstracted from
the meaning of the necessity – derives from – its own contradiction of “being known in
one aspect (al-ma‘lūmiyya bi-i‘tibārin mā).”58
In reality, this situation determines the contracted coinage (‘aqd al-waḍ‘) for the
proposition “The absolute unknown cannot be subjected to judgment.” According
to logicians, contracted coinage is when the substance of the subject-term in the
proposition is characterized by the qualification of its own appellation.59 In other
words, contracted coinage means characterizing something that is the referent
of a concept using that concept. Because the concept “absolute unknown” is a
suppositional concept, characterizing it by any appellation (notion) in the nafs al-
amr is not possible; otherwise, rather than being unknown, it would be something
known for admitting a notion. In other words, the absolute unknown cannot
possibly exist as an absolute unknown in the nafs al-amr; in every case its existence
as something known is impossible. It can only admit the characteristic of “being
known for being absolutely unknown in the nafs al-amr,” which only qualifies
as a mental supposition. This supposition is also a fictional supposition. In the
fictional supposition, the mind supposes something alongside its characteristic,
put differently, both the thing itself (the referent) and the characteristic (meaning)

59 al-Tahānawī, Kashshāf, II, 1193.
116
that can be stated about that thing are suppositions. Hence, according to
Tashkoprīzāda, the contracted coinage for the proposition “The absolute unknown
cannot be subjected to judgment” occurs when a mental supposition admits another
mentally supposed characteristic using supposition, namely when the subject-term
admits the notion of that term itself.
Therefore, the result of the proposition’s contracted coinage is to suppose that this
characteristic, which is known as a supposition in the nafs al-amr, is valid in regard to
the supposed substance that in fact does not exist in the nafs al-amr.60
The fact that the concept of “being absolutely unknown” can be said about such
a “suppositional absolute unknown” does not necessitate actually knowing that
thing, for knowing something in one aspect actually requires the object’s aspect to
be validly expressed in the nafs al-amr. However, nothing valid can be said about
the “absolute unknown” in the nafs al-amr. So how then is this concept a universal?
The reason is that, although a universal is a universal because it corresponds to
the many, this correspondence is not about actuality; on the contrary, as long as
its correspondence to the many can be mentally supposed, it achieves universality.
Thus, universals such as the absolute unknown or impossible concepts, whose
individual aspects are both suppositional as well as suppositional with individual
aspects that cannot be found in the nafs al-amr, are considered universals. However,
universal suppositions cannot be made into a predicate like other objects, for
becoming a predicate of something implicates bringing together two opposites in
the nafs al-amr. For instance, if the term “non-thing” was true about something in
the external world or present in the mind, it would necessitate the simultaneous
trueness of that thing and the non-thing over the thing, which is a contradiction.61
Because universal suppositions implicate the coexistence of two opposites by virtue
of their meaning/notion (i.e., not by virtue of their essence), they cannot be made
into a predicate like any other meaning. Therefore, the point that must be taken
into consideration first and foremost about the concept of “absolute unknown” is
that the characterization of this concept by its own meaning is completely fictional.
In fact, these concepts constitute Tashkoprīzāda’s distinctive solution tools.
Another term the philosopher considered alongside with contracted coinage while
solving this issue is the contracted predicate (‘aqd al-ḥaml). This refers to the way in
60 Tashkoprīzāda, “Fatḥ amr al-mughlaq”, 130-1

61 Tashkoprīzāda, “Qawā‘id al-ḥamliyyāt”, 123.
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NAZARİYAT
which the substance (dhāt) of the subject matter is characterized by the attribute
of the predicate in a proposition. Contracted coinage and contracted predicate are
the two objects to which are assigned the meaning of the proposition.62 According
to Tashkoprīzāda, the contracted predicate is realized either through unification
(bi-tarīq al-ittiḥād) or association (bi-tarīq al-tā‘līq). The predicate that is contracted
through unification is realized by unifying the meaning/notion of the predicate
with whatever it precisely validates in the nafs al-amr, while the predicate contracted
through association is realized by substantiating the meaning of the predicate
over anything that is assigned the validity of the appellation by using supposition.
Tashkoprīzāda explains the difference between the two as follows:
Regarding the first one, the subject-term’s realization in the state of judgment is
absolutely necessary–, be it an affirmative or a negative –; in the state by considering
the judgment, however, realization is necessary, especially in the affirmative. Regarding
the second one, realizing the subject is necessitated neither in the state of judgment nor
in the state by consideration of judgment.
Regarding the second, realizing the subject-term is not necessitated in the

state of judgment, for the judgment is being made over a supposed subject-term,
nor is it necessitated in the state by considering the judgment, for if necessity
were present, no unknown absolute unknown would exist. Tashkoprīzāda uses
the second one (i.e., the contracted predicate using association) as an important
tool. As the absolute unknown has no existence of its own, the contracted
predicate taking place when one makes a judgment about it is manifested through
association; otherwise, it would turn into something known. He additionally states
that although propositions such as “The absolute unknown cannot be subject to
judgment” are affirmative in form, they should be taken as a negative. Therefore,
the expression “cannot be subjected to judgment” must be taken as negative (i.e.,
“it is not possible to subject it to judgment”). In this respect, a difference also exists
between the predicate contracted through unification and the predicate contracted
through association: The first is used in predicated propositions both in terms of
the form and meaning of the proposition while the second constitutes a conditional
proposition in terms of its meaning although predicated in terms of its form. By
referring to al-Jurjānī, Tashkoprīzāda explains how the meaning of the predicate
contracted through association is conditionally manifested in a proposition as
62 al-Tahānawī, Kashshāf, II, 1193.
118
follows: “If this appellation is true about something, the meaning of the predicate
is true about that thing.” To express this in terms of our issue here, “If something
can be said to be absolutely unknown, the absolute unknown is that about which
no judgment can be made.”
After establishing the proposition’s contracted coinage and contracted predicate,
the result of the proposition (i.e., its meaning) must be revealed. Tashkoprīzāda
returns to the paradox “The absolute unknown cannot be subjected to judgment”
and given the options regarding the subject of the proposition, namely whether
it is to be taken as an unknown or a known, chooses the first option. Thus, he
closes the self-referential paradox and takes on the contradiction. In this case, he
must explain without falling into contradiction exactly in what way the judgment
about the “absolute unknown” is impossible and also exactly from which aspect
is it subjected to “The judgment of the impossibility of being judged.” According
to this, the impossibility in the proposition is to subject the absolute unknown
to judgment through unification, for judgment through unification necessitates
the subject to be known. However, the impossibility of judgment of being judged
through unification in terms of this concept does not render impossible its being
subjected to judgment through association.
We shall make the semantic result of this proposition as follows: If being
absolutely unknown were stated or valid about something, any judgment about that
thing would be negated through unification. Yet, this does not prevent one from
making through association the judgment of “The impossibility of being subject to
judgment” in regard to it. The reason for this is that, because making a judgment
in this way does not necessitate its being known, we can make the judgment of
the “Impossibility of making a judgment about it” through association. Thus, two
semantic interpretations of the paradoxical proposition exist when taking the
contracted predicate into consideration: One is through unification, and the other
through association. In this sense, the paradox can be overcome by mere semantic
distinctions without changing the subject or predicate of the proposition, its
reading, or even its modality.
V. Conclusion
A problem examined as the Meno paradox throughout the history of pre-Islamic
philosophy and the classical period of Islamic philosophy seems to have gained a
new form with Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī. The problem of self-reference is also included in
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NAZARİYAT
this new formulation of the paradox. Additionally, the question of “the possibility
of knowledge” no longer remained the only philosophically debated issue; the
question of how topics are organized in logic by the order in which conception
and assent are discussed as parts of knowledge is also debated. In this respect, this
paradox is suitable for discussing the structure of the discipline of Islamic logic,
which examines the relationship between the forms of knowledge (i.e., conception
and assent) and the rules that lead to these forms of knowledge. After all, this issue
made it necessary to explain, without falling into a paradox, how the conception
of suppositional/impossible concepts was achieved and how the assent of these
concepts occurred.
Although Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī did not provide an answer to this subject because
he deemed the rule of “the prioritization of conception over assent” to be necessary,
he did provide the propositions that were determinant in the construction of the
paradox. Together with the propositions derived from al-Rāzī’s text, al-Khūnajī
and al-Urmawī’s solutions based on the essential-external distinction that they
inherited from al-Rāzī were effective in developing the responses that gradually
became stronger in the centuries that followed. This effect was largely developed
using Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s commentary on the Maṭāli‘. Although Tashkoprīzāda
included names such as Ṣadr al-Sharī‘a in this line, his focus on al-Urmawī’s answer
that can be found in Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s commentary, al-Jurjānī’s ḥāshiya, and
Ṣadr al-Sharī‘a’s criticism of al-Khūnajī’s answer while mainly modifying Shams
al-Dīn al-Samarqandī’s answer are clear indications of this effect. In this sense, this
first attempt was essential for the responses that had been put forward to solve
the paradox, which is the subject of this article. Some of the later philosophers
even contributed to overcoming the issue by improving this first answer, while
others showed its invalidity and presented solutions of their own. Nevertheless,
considerably precise responses were observed to have been developed in the period
stretching from al-Khūnajī and al-Urmawī to Tashkopīzāda when compared to the
solutions that had been developed using the essentialist-externalist distinction.
Among these, attempts such as the descriptional reading of the proposition, the
idea of the “suppositional concept,” the name of the concept and its referents, and
the rectification made over these are most remarkable. Unlike al-Khūnajī and al-
Urmawī, al-Samarqandī and Ṣadr al-Sharī‘a adopted the solution of descriptional
reading. Al-Ṭūsī’s answer, which has a slightly different structure than these, is
based on the distinction between referents and meaning.
120
Ṣadr al-Sharī‘a’s usage of terms such as the state of judgment and the state
by considering the judgment, along with al-Jurjānī’s usage of nafs al-amr and
suppositional terms in order to strengthen their solutions, had set the ground for
Tashkoprīzāda’s solution. These concepts that they had included in their solutions
had a significant place in Tashkoprīzāda’s approach. We may, therefore, consider
Tashkoprīzāda’s answers as having been derived from these two philosophers in
terms of the tools that were used. Despite this, the approach of neither philosopher
satisfied Tashkoprīzāda, who therefore set out to find a tighter answer compared
to theirs while using their solution tools. To achieve this, he turned to some highly
refined concepts such as contracted coinage, contracted predicate, fictional supposition,
and contracted predicate realized through unification and association. In fact, even
though he had used a fundamental term such as supposition in the same way as
al-Jurjānī, he achieved a much different result. For, according to his viewpoint,
Ṣadr al-Sharī‘a and al-Jurjānī were unable to assign a suppositional/impossible
concept such as the absolute unknown outside of the set of suppositions that exist
contrary to their nature. In fact, this was what Tashkoprīzāda wanted to achieve
with all the concepts he had refined, as mentioned above. Thanks to these concepts,
the philosopher both achieved this without changing the reading of a proposition
(essentialist-externalist, substantial-descriptional) or even assuming as the
previous generation had that only the subject of the proposition is suppositional.
In a way that left almost no mental omission, he explained how this concept occurs
in the mind through the contracted coinage and the possibility/impossibility of
making a judgment about the concept using the types of the contracted predicate.
Thus he focused only on the semantic transmittance of the proposition. By doing
so and using his own philosophical framework, Tashkoprīzāda eliminated the
absolute unknown from being used as a term of essentiality as his predecessors
had; for being realized had not been enough to throw this term out of the nafs al-
amr. He also was unsatisfied with the mere idea of a supposition as the generation
closer to him had been, for despite the suppositional nature of this term it could
not escape from being known in itself.
121
NAZARİYAT
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Knowing The Unknown: The Paradox of "The Absolute Unknown" From Fakhr Al-Din Al-Razi To Tashkoprizada

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Knowing the Unknown: The Paradox of

“The Absolute Unknown” From

II. Reconstructing the Paradox: Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī

15 Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Manṭiq al-Mulakhkhaṣ, 7.

[1] “The unknown” cannot be subjected to judgment.

[2b] If Proposition 1 is true when the subject-term is “known,” then Proposition 1 is

18 al-Khūnajī, Kashf al-asrār, 9-10.

THE CONVERSE FORM IS THEN TAKEN, where:

BASED ON THE IMPLICATION OF EQUIVALENCE RULE

If the consequent is false, the antecedent is also false.

[3a] If Proposition 2 is true when the subject-term is “the absolutely unknown,”

[4] Then some unknowns can be subjected to judgment.

[3b] If Proposition 2 is true when its subject-term is considered “known”

CONCLUSION: IT IS INVALID DUE TO THE SELF-REFERENTIAL PARADOX

After exposing this paradox, al-Khūnajī and al-Urmawī proposed a solution

As can be seen, an analysis of a proposition based on the essentialist or

24 al-Khūnajī, Kashf al-asrār, 10.

27 Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Sharḥ al-Maṭāli‘, I, 92.

Another important factor in determining the semantics of a proposition is

This distinction thus indicates that the meaning of a proposition can be

28 Ṣadr al-Sharī‘a, Ta‘dīl al-‘ulūm, Nuruosmaniye Or. 2657, fos. 16a-17a.

proposition, however, the description ascribed to the substance is taken into

Proposition 1 [descriptional]: “The subject of judgment remains known in one aspect as

Proposition 2 [descriptional] “Subjecting the absolute unknown to judgment remains

If the absolute unknown in Proposition 2 is considered unknown, the self-referential

Additionally, “subjecting the unknown to judgment” means that it is subjected

The proposition that subjects the unknown to judgment while taking it as an

If the subject of judgment in the consequent is an unknown, then subjecting certain

On the other hand, if the absolute unknown in Proposition 2 is taken as a known,

31 Tashkoprīzāda, “Fatḥ al-amr al-mughlaq”, 114-5.

specifying the flaws of the solution based on the essentialist-externalist distinction,

This solution is not addressed in Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s commentary on Maṭāli‘,

35 Ṣadr al-Sharī‘a, Ta‘dīl al-‘ulūm, fos. 18a.

39 Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Sharḥ al-Maṭāli‘, I, 96.

Therefore, if Proposition 2 (“The absolute unknown cannot be subjected to

According to al-Jurjānī absolute unknowns as a term, are things known by the

42 al-Jurjānī, al-Sayyid ‘alā Sharḥ al-Maṭāli‘, 81.

The realization [thubūt] of one thing to another, particularly in the affirmation,

In other words, making an affirmative or negative judgment about something

According to this, although Proposition 2 “The absolute unknown cannot be

46 Ṣadr al-Sharī‘a, Ta‘dīl al-‘ulūm, fos. 16a-17b.

IV. Tashkoprīzāda’s Solution Tools and Suggestion

47 Tashkoprīzāda, “Fatḥ amr al-mughlaq”, 128-9.

or the supposition of the one supposing them. Tashkoprīzāda emphasizes the

One is referred to as a supposition based on abstraction (al-farḍ al-intizā‘ī), which

55 Tashkoprīzāda, “Zihinsel Varlığa Dair Tartışmalar”, 243.

One example of a supposition based on abstraction would be to suppose a

58 Tashkoprīzāda, “Fatḥ amr al-mughlaq”, 130-1.

60 Tashkoprīzāda, “Fatḥ amr al-mughlaq”, 130-1

Regarding the second, realizing the subject-term is not necessitated in the

62 al-Tahānawī, Kashshāf, II, 1193.

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